Will bankers wear the bonus cap?

May I add to Simon Jenkins' reasoning (If bankers leave it would be no loss, 6 March)? Medics, scientists and engineers use complicated algorithms and have to get outcomes right. We entrust our lives to their correctly assessing risk. If they make gross mistakes they lose their jobs and their professional status.Bankers don't have a special expertise not found elsewhere – they are demonstrably poor at building algorithms and worse at evaluating risk. There are plenty to take their shoes at a tenth of the salary.

It is extraordinary that bankers think that because the commodity they deal with is money, this entitles them to large cash bonuses. Those transporting goods around the world don't get a few containers as a bonus. Shareholders should regard bankers' bonuses as theft of stock.

Bankers cannot continue narrowly defining success so that they have a bonus even when the company is failing. Shareholders or regulations should control bonuses, not boards of directors – they have vested interests. The Swiss have made shareholders the determinants of salaries (Report,4 March). I've not heard of an exodus from Zurich, but if one happens, the Swiss may be pleased.

City deregulation has bred selfishness not seen since Dickensian workhouse owners. Thatcherism's feeble trickle-down effect is shown as nonsense.The arrogance at the top is sickening, and has led many to despise the whole City. We should separate from condemnation those few who tried unsuccessfully to regulate their colleagues, and those who do real banking work, not profiting from hedge funds or manipulating millions. If the present bank leaders can't control themselves, let's get someone better in.Professor Peter GardinerRingmer, East Sussex

• Nils Pratley makes some valideconomicarguments against the European parliament's capping of bankers' bonuses, but it's clearly not an economic issue, it's political (This cap is never going to fit, 6 March). The banking culture,which got us into this mess, mustbe changed, even ifit's only cosmetically,by politicians, because it is the overwhelming wishof the people, as Simon Jenkins admits. Of course, Cameron and Osborne cannot go along withit, not only because it would offend Tory donors in the City, but because itwould be an admission that the economic crisis was not, in fact, the sole faultof the Labour government.Bernie EvansLiverpool

• The proposal to put a cap on bankers' bonuses is nonsensical and short-sighted – a kneejerk reaction to a symptom rather than a serious approach to a real problem, and thus likely to have unintended consequences.Either it is simply arbitrary to apply such a measure to one specific group or banks are a special case and their employees subject to unique terms and conditions of employment, even though employed by public limited companies.

The reason bankers are able to secure such large bonuses is through deal-making, speculation and other investment banking activities, rather than from activities that lubricate the real economy. If these core activities were to be split off,as now widely proposed, there would be no need to bother about redefining or regulating the way in which bankers are rewarded.Christopher SwainHenham, Essex

• Discussion of bonus caps tends to generate the rebuttalthat such measures would lead to investors leaving in droves. There is, however, the counter-argument that such measures would attract investors to a financial culture in which they would be protected from the greed of senior management and "risk takers".Martin SwalesCambridge

• Disapprove of bankers' greed? Fed up with having no say in their ridiculous pay and bonus packages? Close your account and put your money in a mutual. When asked, vote against demutualisation. Vote for your choice of board members. If enough people do this, the bankers will pretty soon get the message. Margaret CareyHurstpierpoint, West Sussex

• In view of the decision of the EU finance ministers, and the Swiss referendum on the limitation of bankers' bonuses, where will the disgruntled bankers go?Alan LovejoyPortsmouth